Have you heard of this? The Cabbage Juice

Recently, my husband suffered from stomach ucler. It was a bad experience... So I did some research from the web and came about a few shares on cabbage juice which helps on our digestion system.

According to wiki, Cabbage juice contains L-glutamine and gefarnate, both of which protect the mucous-membrane lining of your stomach. Cabbage juice is also fermented to create probiotics that further help your digestive health. Unfortunately, I did not know how to ferment the juice, so I'd rather not risk but settle with fresh cabbage juice...

Sadly speaking, my husband is not a fan of vegetable juice, so he wasn't even willing to try it out... arghhhh~*

Note: When doing vegetable juice, please get organic vegetables. I bought mine which was not organic from Fairprice (wanted to cook it for soup, initially), so it was soaked in salt water for about 10-15 mins before juicing. I probably drank a lot of pesticide this time so I will get organic one in future for juicing...  :(

I searched from youtube on how to slowjuice cabbage as I know it could jam the juicer easily if its not chopped up correctly. There wasn't many videos on slow-juicing cabbages. The only one was a guy who touched his hair every one and then during juicing and even jammed the juicer. Nevertheless, I had learnt not to cut the way he did it... and yup, that saved me in a way...

The whole cabbage yielded almost 2 cups of juice but also near 2 cups of foam.... I had no clue why there's sooooo much foam from slow-juicing cabbage... no idea! The cabbage was halved and soaked in salt water. First half was chopped up in squares. The remaining was chopped into rectangle blocks.



Both ways of cutting worked fine for the juicer, both needed to be pressed occasionally to ensure that the leaves went down the juicing unit. The cubes were a little too fat for the feeding hole, the rectangle blocks seemed to be fed more easily. (Just a small comparison to share with all)

Here's the clip on chopping up and slow-juicing cabbage. Before juicing the cabbage, we did carrots and celery, so please don't feel odd when you see orange pulp in the video. HohOHo~*



One thing to mention is that after rinsing the juicer with plain water to clear away the carrot juice done earlier on, leakage was observed when juicing the cabbage. (Not sure if you can spot that but I tried to zoom at it towards the end of the clip) 

The pulp was reasonably dry at the output of the juicer, some was stuck inside the juicer but no big issue when it came to cleaning up. Cheers!

Here it is, my first cabbage juice. This is good for cleansing your digestive system. If you want to try it out with your juicer, be sure to drink it the same day when it is juiced, before food, preferably empty stomach for better absorption and please, buy organic... Good luck!

Hey Vege Vege... Tried Tomatoes Carrots and Cucumbers!

After so many rounds of orange juice. I had finally juiced something which I had wanted to do so long ago, even before I got this slow juicer. I had no idea why it took me so long to do it when these ingredients could easily be found from any markets...

It's tomato - carrot - cucumber juice! Wahahaha... The first vegetable juice i did was carrot and celery. This is the second. Very cooling...

Fresh carrot juice is unbelievably sweet, must try!

Fresh tomato juice has a very rich taste... only those who loves tomatoes will be able to take it. BTW FYI, tomato is good for skin...

Cucumber juice is super refreshing and cooling. It's either I have them sliced and lined on my face or I juice them to share with everyone at home ^^

Having them together... well, only me and my girl drank it. Wahahaha! It was the colour that turned my husband off. He didn't even gave it a sip... I was glad that my girl actually tried it. She even took a second sip! hee hee!

I had a mixing bowl of washed and chopped carrots, tomatoes and cucumbers. Portion was purely agaration as I bought them in packets from supermarkets and juice them all!

Here's a clip on the juicing of these rich-A & refreshing combo. I think the juicer shook a little when carrots were threw in... Hmmz... Not sure if that's normal...  (-_-")

So many fruits...

Now, my kitchen was left with an extra watermelon, half a bunch of bananas, a small bunch of red S/L grapes and 3 apples... What's more exciting was that my mom brought a bag of oranges (I didn't even want to count how many there were) for me to juice...

When I talked about my mom and oranges, it brought back fond memories of my mum making orange juice for the family... Okay, not really fond for her but it's fond for me and my siblings since we got to drink it... Hee! Hmmz.. and did I say she make the juice manually? Yup, by halving the fruits and squeeze them using a manual orange/ lemon juicer. Actually I tried it a couple of times when I need to juice just 1 or 2 oranges for my girl... It's not too bad if its just 1 or 2.. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't lazy to do it manually but I was not satisfied with the amount of juice yielded when doing it manually. I remember that it took around 3-4 medium sized oranges to fill a big mug when my mom did it... (Great work, Mom!)

Today, before I set off for a short trip, I decided to get my helper's help to pose as my model (again) so that I could record the juicing clip for sharing. This time, we did a mixture of fruits... hmmz, yes a mixture but not really a mixture... Oh, it's getting confusing! See below...

Part 1 - Apple and Red Grapes (for my girl)
Part 2 - Oranges (just oranges, for the family)

And we did this without having to rinse/wash the juicer during the transition. WuhoO~* And yup yup yup! I finally managed to video juicing the oranges... I thought I did but I realized those were just pictures earlier on. OOps!

Ready? Let's start with the apples and grapes! (Tips on juicing apples: Not everyone read every entry of my juicing diary, so I'd echo it here... Remove the seeds when juicing apples as they were toxic.) These grapes and apples yielded a bottle and slightly more of apple-grape juice. Yummy~*

Here's on the oranges... (Tips on peeling oranges: I was probably the last to know but in case if you didn't know either, here's an effective way by using knife to 'slice' the skin, then simply peel it off. That won't hurt your nails so badly if you were to peel the skin directly using your nails... Not sure if you got what I meant but I video it anyway)

These small oranges (about 20?) yielded about 2L of juice... WuhoO~*

So in the end, nope, I did not juice the bananas... My girl loves it as it is... I could probably make banana smoothie if there's leftover... Wahhahhaa~*

Watermelon!

Would anyone actually juice a watermelon when all you need to juice it is to simply eat it?! Haa...

Well, I know someone who does but I don't understand it...

This is the first time I have ever thought of juicing the watermelon... for the main reason (or excuse, maybe)... I hope my elder daughter would try a little of it ^^

When I told my husband that I'm going to juice a watermelon... He jokingly remarked that doing it would be an insult to the watermelon... hahahaha!

I was at the fairprice yesterday but the watermelons are sold at $6+... I dropped by Giant this morning and quickly grabbed 2 of them (Malaysia red seedless watermelon) at $2.50 each! Yippee ^^

Special thanks to my helper/model so that we can have the clip for today's juicing ^^ I had used fine strainer. One whole watermelon with skin removed, then coarsely chopped. This yielded more than 1.5 litres of watermelon juice. I had tried some, it tasted rich and sweet. Yummy! ^^

 

(Tips on choosing watermelon - heavy and with very defined lines)... Have FUN juicing!! ^^

Red grapes, Rose Apple, Oranges

As my girl wasn't used to chewing grapes with its skin, it took some time to remove the skin and seeds before the grapes could be fed to my big baby.

On the other hand, she couldn't finish the  whole big apple but only 1/4 of it as most, I had to eat lotsa apple leftover each day.

Left with many grapes that were very ripen and an apple in the fridge... I decided to juice them when I made orange juices today.

Sorry, no pics as these were very common fruits ^^

10-20 big red grapes and 2/3 big apples (core removed), yielded about 1 cup of juice for my girl (to ease her constipation).

5 big Africa oranges ($2.45 for 5 from Fairprice) yielded 2 1/2 cup of oranges for my husband and I ^^

All in less than 20mins. Really convenient and effortless to juice different batches together.

(Side note: the grape and apple juice seemed to separate into pulp and water layers after a while)

Kiwi...

Kiwi, strawberries... Such soft fruits are probably not suitable, in terms of its volume, when it came to slow juicing.

Earlier this week, my girl rejected her first try of kiwi fruits. It's probably too sour, instead of sweet, that she didn't like it.

So today while we were juicing oranges, I thought of mixing the kiwi into the juice for my constipated girl.

If worked, she finished the juice... But to be frank, there's only very little amount of juice from this big kiwi... Sigh... I didn't waste the pulp, I ate it! Yes, I know it may sound/seem gross... But it's still fruit, right?

Sticking with juicing oranges, apples, kind of crunchy and juicy fruits, instead of expensive soft fruits... Hmm... At least my girl took it in its juice form ;p

Back from confinement

I had certainly kept really quiet on this blog for a while... Not that I had forgotten it but I just 'graduated' from confinement ^^

And the very first juice I craved for after 40 days of warm longan dates tea... Was the chilled Orange Juice!!!

My elder daughter loves the orange juice... Probably the first type of juice that let her learnt the word 'juice'...

The difference in this batch was that I had added a little bit (abt the size of a thumb) of ginger... Yes! Ginger, as I had plenty of leftover from the confinement...

Verdict? This tiny bit of ginger overwhelmed the 15 small African oranges used in juicing... So, lesson learnt. If you intend to include ginger to boost the nutrition value of the juice, use just 1-2 slices and that would probably be more than enough in terms of the taste...

Good luck when you try it.. Haa! Really glad to be back to juicing... WuhOO! ^^

Something to try for... The what butter?

My husband loves peanut butter...

He got curious and asked if the slow juicer could make some peanut butter when he saw me juicing the almond nuts previously...

This question really make me ponder, so I did some research over the web and found a video on youtube... This juicer reviewer guy (raw food something..) demo the making of peanut butter using heavy duty slow juicer...

The keys are:

1. The slow juicer has to be heavy duty or it will damage the motor since it will be done without water and no pre-soaking required
2. The peanuts are best to be roasted nuts so its oil content will make it easier during the juicing process and the pulp will become the peanut butter
3. When 'juicing' peanut butter, it's best to open up the silicon slot underneath the juicer to allow better pressure flow in releasing the pulp from the unit

This is really an interesting finding and I hope to try it one day.... The only concern in my mind is, I wasn't sure if A*Juicer is a 'heavy duty' juicer that suit this making... Nevertheless, I thought I should share with you what's on my mind with the potential juicing project... Haa!

Let me know if you have tried it! Cheers! ^^

There's something to share about APPLES

I have no idea what to juice recently... a trip to the supermarket didn't pack much back...

Fruits are getting more expensive nowadays...

And have you seen or are you are even aware of the ROSE apples in the market now? They are called the "Rose" apples... rosy red, not waxy and absolutely sweet!

 The first rose apple I ever tried was many months ago when my parents got them from cold storage. Those apples were small and selling at almost $1 each at that time...

BUT Seriously SWEET!

Since then, we would look out for only Rose apples... not crunchy kiwi apple, good-bye to fuji apples, seen some envy apples from US or NZ... but we ONLY buy ROSE apples!

There seems to be a season for such great fruit... the rose apples that we manage to get now no longer taste that sweet as they used to be, though still better than the almost tasteless CN fuji apples...

Speaking of apples, I should probably get some cheap ones for juicing since I heard that i may help to ease constipation in kid... Green + Red, perhaps! Hope this help!

(And my girl loves juice!)

Some days later

It's been sometime since I last post entry about the usage of my juicer...

It's been more than a month since I got this juicer...

That doesn't mean that I haven't been using it... Haa! I had made soy bean milk (coarse strainer), almond milk (coarse strainer), orange juice (fine strainer) and banana smoothie (fine strainer)!

Sorry, no pics as I was in a rush when making all these (on different days of course!) Just a quick tip to share with all as one of my lesson learnt...

When making Banana smoothie...

Tip#1 Do not freeze the entire banana, try to peel them before freezing
Why is this so? Because when the skin turned hard, it's challenging to peel the skin properly...

Tip#2 Keep the rubber unblock at the bottom of the juicing unit
This allows the 'pulp' which is the smoothie to come off unit more easily

I'll share some pics next time when I do it correctly next time... Anyway, it tastes pretty good this batch... so just some pointers to note.... Cheers~*

Sadly.... my 4th warranty registration...

It's not that the juicer is having any problem now... Also, under my care, I was almost confident that it probably won't need for any servicing within 1 year...

However, it took really too long with its warranty registration process...

The juicer was received on 3rd Jun, I tried the first online registration about a week later, so probably 8th or 9th Jun? I forgot...

I received nothing... so I tried again.... and again.... and after the 3rd time, I sent a feedback to the company but nothing was received. Lucky enough that my ex-classmate was working there so he tried to find out for me and kept me posted on the progress...

This evening, upon request, I did my 4th online registration... and here's the screenshot, just in case if it went missing (again)....

Hope it can be settled soon... Cheers!

Updated on 7/3: So I received a confirmation that my warranty registration is processed. Now, I'm waiting for my e-recipe ^^

Day 20 - Grapefruit Juice

It's been a week of haze, really bad haze and very luckily, our first blue sky in this week...

Even if its for 1/2 a day, it's happiness to see such clear sky... Beauty of nature!

After some researches from web about drinks that help to cleanse our lungs... I learnt that we should cut down on diary intake and focus on anti-oxidant fruits/teas... 

Lemon with water in the morning with empty stomach, some cranberry, grapefruit or carrot juice... Mint tea... Ginger... Blah blah blah... Would help a little...

So I grabbed some grapefruits from supermarket on Friday morning before the haze hit 401 that 'grey and smoky' Friday.

Here's total of 6 grapefruits, peeled and separated into smaller pieces for feeding to the slow juicer...

My first time juicing grapefruit... 

BTW, I tried a new app 'LINE Tools' which I just installed recently... To check on the noise level, not sure how accurate but just to share...

Before juicing (normal noise level in my kitchen with doors and windows closed)

When A*Juicer was turned on but without feeding of fruits

And this was when the grapefruits were fed into the juicer... Somehow ard the similar range...

This portion yielded about 5 Cups of juice. (FYI, I used fine strainer) It was a little bitter and sour... So I added some maple syrup to neutralize the taste... Pretty good!

No video as it's very similar to my post on juicing oranges...

Here's the pulp...

And not forgetting the cleaning part... Nothing much left with the centre screw so cleaning was not too tedious...

Take care, folks! Hope we can all pull through this hazy period... And may all the dengue mosquitoes be eliminated entirely!

Stay safe and healthy!! ^^

Day 18 - Soy Milk from my kitchen!

Soy milk is readily available at many places in Singapore (or SE Asia)... If you prefer to drink it with less sugar, you can always request that to the counter staff/ stall owner.

It was nice and healthy, yet cheap and so available... So it hadn't come to my mind of making it at home until I was much older and more keen to adventure on my favorite food... favorite food? This could be tricky because I love a lot of food... Haa!

Today, I've made it, finally! Thanks to my parents for helping to get the dried soy beans, pandan leaves and rock sugar on behalf as I was pretty stuck at home (yesterday) due to the very unhealthy level of haze condition.

Before I did this adventure on my own, I read up from the web to find the most commonly used recipe/portion, key pointers from pple with years of soy milk experiences...

Plenty of 'written' soy milk recipe was made by blending, followed by straining using cheese cloth... I'm using the slow juicer!!! (Guidance came mainly on YouTube without much tips)...

As mentioned, I did this on my own so I didn't have a model for video. Nevertheless, it's just like how I did the almond milk in my previous post. So to speak, I only have tips and pics to share...

Gathered tips as follow:

1. Try to use non-GMO beans (or organic)

2. If the weather is too hot, replace the soaking water in between the 12 hours or keep the soak in fridge

3. Make sure the soaked beans are soft enough so it doesn't challenge ya tools (be it a blender or a slow juicer)

3. Keep stirring when boiling the milk as residue might get burnt at the bottom of the pot

Before 

1 cup of dried beans swelled into 2.5 cups of cute soy beans after 13 hours (Since I overslept... Oops!)

I use total of 8 cups of water for juicing with the beans (the soaking water was discard), so 2 of the following.

After

I used fine strainer to ensure min. Pulp in the juice... And maximum Okara (the dry part of beans after juicing. This could be recycled onto many other dishes but this was my first time so I wasn't ready...)

Poured the yield of over 8 cups of milk into a big pot, threw in about 4-6 pieces of fresh pandan leaves (folded) and bring it to boil over medium low heat. 

Kept stirring to avoid burnt... After boil, add in a piece of rock sugar for sweetening the milk... Let it cool in the pot or serve immediately when warm. It can be kept for 3-4 days in fridge... But why won't you finish it and make it fresh and warm daily!? Haa ^^

It's really simple when made with slow juicer because the juicing included straining, while using a blender, the mixture had to be strained separately. I wondered if that affect the richness in taste of the milk... So perhaps someone who tried both ways could share a little based on your experience?!

Lastly, here's my cleaning part... Very simple, as usual!

Day 11 - It is Almond Milk!!

I love almond... And I love milk...

Today, I was thrilled! This is the first time I'm making almond milk!

I wanted to try this since the first time I saw the making of almond milk using slow juicer on YouTube... I searched online for recipe and each have a different saying...

Some say 1 cup of almonds to 1 cup of water, others have 1 cup of almonds to 3 to 4 cups of water...

Some say reserve the soaking water to juice it together... Some say do not use the soaking water but fresh new water when juicing...

For me, I started the preparation since last night. I soaked 1.5 cup of almonds in 3 cups of warm drinking water and let it stand overnight...

After 12 hours, the soaking water turned brownish but with a light almond fragrance... Seriously, I was tempted to reuse this water for juicing as I believe there's rich nutrients from the soaked almond... However, I didn't want my first almond milk to turn out brownish, so I replaced it with drinking water.

After soaking overnight, the almonds had grown in size... It's 2 cups of almond in the morning, so I used 7 cups of water to juice for almond milk... (Maybe its too diluted? I didn't know until I try but I didn't want to spoil my juicer when it's merely 11 days old with me... So let's just try!!

Here's the video of the 'grounding' of soaked almonds, using A*Juicer. The noise level was acceptable (at least my girl was still sleeping, while we were happily trying to juice almond milk).



I didn't managed to measure the exact amount if milk made from this batch of almonds as simple maths could tell that 7 cups of water + 2 cups of almonds would easily exceed the 4 cup capacity of the container... Wahahaha! Here's the huge amount of milk yielded from this proportion of 'recipe' (with extremely dry pulp). It's not very rich taste of almond but with a light fragrance of it. In terms of its texture, it's just like fresh milk. I'd probably cut down the proportion of drinking water for juicing during the next batch to see if it could taste richer  :)

And don't forget about the cleaning up! Nothing much was left inside the juicer so cleaning was a breeze today! *Clap Clap*

I was getting happier with this juicer the moment it passed the almond milk test... Wahahaha!! Next on my trial list would be soy milk... If you are longing for a good slow juicer, my humble advise to you would be, why not try this A*Juicer ^^

Day 9 - NZ red apple juice

5 small crunchy red apples, with seeds removed, yielded about 2 cups of apple juice. I had used fine strainer this time as I want the juice more than the flesh...

Turned out? Very rich and sweet, real, pure apple juice! I love it ^,^

In my post abt green apple juice, there were quite an amount of pulp retained on the squeezing screw. This time, there's not much of it inside the juicer... Most of the fruit had come off from the outlet dry.

I placed the parts into a mixing bowl, not to mix them but to reuse the rinsing water, instead of brushing everything user running water. At the end of the cleaning, I used about a mixing bowl of water for cleaning... Guess I'm getting quicker and quicker ^,^

To wrap it up, I find that this juicer (perhaps generally the same for all slow juicer?) juice apples, oranges and carrots pretty well. So-So for high and long fibre item like celery as it got stuck easily if not chopped to smaller pieces.. And soft and tiny fruits like tomatoes or grapes, the pulp didn't come out as dry... So I usually run a second squeeze for soft and tiny items... Anyway, I had only tried so few items, so this is really based on my limited experience (but commonly juiced fruits/vege)... Next on my bucket list would be almond nuts!!! Till then, folks!

Day 8 - The Remainders

After fridging the fruits be vege for a few days, I finally decided to finish them off before they went to waste...

The remaining seedless red grapes, yielded 1/2 cup of very sweet juice. I didn't wait to finish then off!

The whole packet of celery which had been refrigerated for almost a week, yup this sounded very dry, yielded 2 cups of juice (mixed with the 1/2 packet of almost drying carrots). This would be set aside for my parents.

I'm done for this batch!!! Till I have time to juice... And till it's the right season, I'd get more fresh fruits to squeeze them dry! Wahahahaha ^^ 

Day 6 - Orange Juice

Peeled oranges, about 6 of these yielded more than 3 cups of orange juice with pulp.

As they were juiced with the fibre and seeds... The juice turned out v thick and slightly bitter or sour... A v rich taste...

Before

After

The wash up

Enjoy ^,^

Day 3 - Green Apple Juice

It was getting late... Little did I expect my husband to ask for juice... Haa! So he shall be my model for juicing!

5 small-medium green apples yielded about 2 cups of juices, I used coarse strainer to retain more pulp in the drink.

Firstly, rinsed the apples, removed the stickers on skin, if any, removed the core and seeds (Did you know that seeds of apples and pears are toxic and should not be used when juicing? I learnt from an auntie when she did demo at Taka...)

A large bowl of cut apples, gentle reminder that the feeder is of a moderate size so cutting apples into quarter would not be sufficient, you'll need to half it further.)

So by force, my husband had to put aside his PS3 controller and got over to the kitchen for his first hands-on... When quite well as he just need to turn on the juicer and start throwing sliced apples into the feeder. How hard can that be? ;p

So my girl watched as he happily juiced... We tried to video it but my girl got too excited and wanted to get off her high chair... You'll find out what I meant when you catch this clip... So it's just a very short clip with some background noise (not from the juicer...)! ~,~

Here's the juice, about 2 Cups... With quite an amount of foam.

Good news was that the juicer did not move this time, I meant didn't shake but say firmly on the base... Relived!! Also, the pulp that came out from the outlet was relatively dry... We were satisfied!

Here came the washing part... The pulp got stuck inside the strainer, on the rotating angular... Not too sure why but I got my juice!

We chilled the juice in the fridge for about 30mins or longer... The juice didn't become separated like those from traditional centrifugal juicer. Nevertheless, it's just a comment, we usually drink it right away so it didn't matter that much.

Conclusion, the pulp often got stuck when I tried juicing today... Need to try out more to find out how it could be avoided. Bottom line from today's juicing experience: it's quiet, juice well and budget (reasonable price), easy to clean up... Met all my criteria!